The present invention relates to an image processing system used in tomographic equipment such as X-ray computed tomographic equipment and a magnetic resonance imaging system or MRI system.
An image display apparatus is arranged in conventional X-ray computed tomographic equipment or a conventional magnetic resonance imaging system to display output image information. In such an image display apparatus, cine display (motion display) for displaying motion of a stomach or a heart is performed in addition to still image display. The cine display of an image in, for example, a 512.sup.2 (512.times.512) matrix corresponds to a sequential display of 20 to 30 still images per second. For the cine display in a conventional image display system, if a series of images (since the images are sequentially displayed while each image is displayed for a predetermined period of time) to be recognized as substantially a one-frame still image is given to an image unit, image information corresponding to 20 to 30 still images of the 512.sup.2 matrix is stored in a memory, and the 20 to 30 still images, data of which are stored in the memory, are switched at high speed and displayed. Therefore, in order to perform cine display, a very large capacity memory must be used. In addition, since the images stored in the memory are sequentially read out, switched and displayed, it is very difficult to perform the cine display in the conventional image display apparatus.
Furthermore, when window processing is performed for the image information (gradation is provided in a specific range of the original gradation data), a larger capacity memory than that described above is required, and the memory switching access becomes more complicated. Image information write/read access with respect to the memory and window processing are performed by a common central processing unit (CPU). Therefore, display image switching is greatly degraded.